KRAKOW, Nov 8 (Reuters) – Poland began two days of national mourning on Sunday after a gunman killed six people in Krakow’s historic main square, an attack the government said may have been inspired by far-right ideology.
Saturday’s shooting shocked a country that had prided itself on being safer than many of its Western European neighbours, and deepened public concern about extreme views following school stabbings in October that officials have linked to inflammatory content online.
Nationalist opposition politicians, however, questioned the grounds on which the government said far-right ideology could have led to the shooting that left 16 people wounded in addition to those killed.
Those hurt included two police officers and the suspected gunman, a 24-year-old Polish man. He remains in critical condition in hospital, local authorities said.
Krakow’s old town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that attracts visitors from around the globe.
One of the people who died was identified as a British citizen and another as Austrian, while five foreign nationals — from Austria, Britain, Germany, Portugal and Russia — were among the wounded.
THREE BODIES AND GUNS WERE FOUND AT SUSPECT’S HOME
In addition to the six killed in Krakow’s main square, police found the bodies of the suspect’s parents and sister at his home in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, about 200 km (124 miles) north of Krakow.
Prosecutor’s office spokesperson Daniel Prokopowicz said it was “highly likely” the killings in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski and Krakow were carried out by the same person, but said investigations were ongoing.
Prokopowicz said the three bodies in the suspect’s home had gunshot wounds and that firearms and a significant quantity of ammunition were recovered from the property.
Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski on Saturday said everything points to the attacker having held “very, very radical views” and being “fascinated by far-right ideologies,” prompting a reaction from the socially conservative and nationalist PiS.
“If Kierwinski has misinformed the public, he should face political consequences. We demand immediate explanations and access to information that he had based his statements on,” Przemyslaw Czarnek, deputy head of PiS, wrote on X.
On Sunday, Kierwinski said he was not retracting his earlier statements, but that an investigation into the shooter’s motive was ongoing.
“We are not passing judgement,” he told broadcaster TVN24. “Always, there are initial hypotheses, information and evidence … These are things now being checked by the police and I will not elaborate. Nobody is walking anything back.”
Little is known about the suspect other than that he belonged to a shooting club.
STREETS CLOSED AS MOURNERS LEAVE CANDLES
Police tightened security in Warsaw and other Polish cities.
In Krakow, the old town’smain market square —one of the largest medieval squares in Europe —and the surrounding streets had been closed before reopening late on Sunday. Many nearby cafes were closed and flags at the city hall were at half-mast.
The traditional hourly trumpet call from St Mary’s church on the square had been suspended for 12 hours overnight to commemorate the dead, the first time this has happened since 1939, state news agency PAP reported.
In Warsaw, police said on Saturday they were strengthening security measures in busy areas popular with tourists. Barriers were installed on streets leading onto Krakowskie Przedmiescie street in the historic heart of the capital.
ATTACKS SHAKE SENSE OF SECURITY
In Krakow, locals and tourists spoke of their shock on Sunday.
“This is terrible for me, that (this) can happen in Poland because it’s never happened like this in Poland … I think that this can be a new era in my country,” local resident Witold Slowikowski said.
In Warsaw, Maria, a 20-year-old cafe employee, said she “almost burst into tears” when she heard about the shooting.
“Recent events —not just this one, but things happening lately —are really affecting our sense of security,” she said.
Leading daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita said in an editorial that the mass shooting brought a “brutal end to an era in which Poland was considered an island of safety.”
Officials and members of the public praised the actions of police officers who apprehended the gunman, who was armed with a semi-automatic rifle.
The two officers who sustained gunshot wounds while overpowering the gunman after a close-range shootout have regained consciousness, a regional government official told a press conference. One had received life-saving treatment from an off-duty doctor on the street before paramedics arrived and both had undergone surgery.
“It sounded like fireworks, but we knew that something was off about it and we froze,” said 35-year-old teacher and tour guide Aleksandra Dutka. “A split second later I could see a swarm of people, like hundreds of people, running towards me. They were obviously trying to flee the square.”
(Reporting by Jakub Porzycki and Fedja Grulovic in Krakow, Kacper Pempel in Ostrowiec Swietokrzyski, Karol Badohal and Marek Strzelecki in Warsaw; Writing by Alan Charlish; Editing by Helen Popper, Barbara Lewis and Chris Reese)
